Bad Taste
by I'm Not Wearing Any Pants
Summary: It'll certainly leave one in your mouth for a few days.


Ben 10 is the combined property of Man of Action and Cartoon Network. No copyright infringement intended. Here's some more mildly interesting villains who are not explained in any way and might never come back again once unceremoniously punched out of the plot by Ben. And the kicker is they're voiced by actors you know and love mimicking voices from existing popular characters from previous Ben 10s who aren't on this show yet. And might not be at all. Hm.

* * *

We join our trio of Ben 10 cosplayers from an alternative universe where everything is silly and contrived for the sake of being silly and contrived because network media standards at the Yum Yum Yum fest. Ben transformed into Four Arms to bend back a tree so Grandpy Dave could park the Rustbucket precariously for the sake of unfunny comedy slapstick quota. Why could't he rip the tree out and spare the drama?

"Destruction of property. I don't wanna get fined!" Ben reverted, letting the tree bounce back and slap the Rustbucket slightly sideways without doing any major damage to it. He reclined on the ground. "We also had to take time out to set up the soon to be missed moral of today's show. There's no need to fight over who's the best." He pointed to himself. "Everyone already knows I'm the best. That's right. Me, Benjamin Kirby Tennyson. The undisputed hero of the universe."

"Ah, good to see you kids already absorbed today's episode script so I don't have to vomit out any more exposition as is my current purpose on this series," said Grandpa Max as he exited the conspicuously CGI vehicle. "Instead, I can go stuff my face and be generally useless as a character. As is also my current purpose on this series. I think there's an impending future joke to be had about me being a plumber in this continuity, only I'll be a literal plumber and everyone will be disappointed while having their growing suspicions validated. Crushing disappointment, how we love you!"

"I can stuff my face and be way more useless and disappointingly weakened as a character than you, Grandpa," said Gwen. She stumbled forward a few steps before placing a hand to her forehead. The poor girl wobbled unsteadily. "Oh, I don't feel so good. I feel like the script for today's episode is going to give me severe indigestion."

"Gee, Gwen. You missed a good joke opportunity there by not saying I feel like today's episode script will be hard to stomach," Ben said, nudging her in the side with his rubbery elbow. "Now that would have been an acceptable pun. Get it? Ha ha, get it? Gwen?"

Gwen's face turned pale and sickly. She assumed the thousand yard stare. Only this time she had walleyes. Derp.

"Oh, Ben," Grandpa Max said with a placid smile. "You know Gwen's brain doesn't function well in this series." He felt a bit light headed. "Hmm, come to think of it, I'm more idiotic and prone to making bad decisions than usual in this show myself, so I'm not one to talk."

"Then I guess you two sadly demoted side characters better wander off to do painfully embarrassing OOC things while I get to sometimes punch bad guys and make immature puns that the new generation of children will hopefully laugh at regardless of overwhelming stupidity," said Ben. "Because the network execs assume the kiddies are as dumb as they want them to be in order to sell them cheaply made garbage at a high profit."

"Not yet, Ben," said Gwen, annoyed enough to snap out of her characterization derailment induced catatonic state. "We're not getting written out of the plot this quickly!"

"You can't stop it," Ben said flatly.

Gwen seized up, twitching. It looked like she was having a minor muscle spasm. Nope, just another bout of sudden plot coordinated character derailment. Farewell, innocent child.

"Oooh! Ben, let's have a weird food eating contest! I feel compelled to eat more weird food than you!" Her eyes turned into huge starbursts of childish excitement. "Can't...control...idiotic childish impulses. Also can't see anything with these goofy stars in my irises."

Ben backed away. "Ew, Gwen! You're covered in bishonen anime sparkles!"

Gwen ran off, giggling like a maniac, hands flailing out in front of her as she went "Looloolooloolooloo!" in a high pitched voice. She tripped a few times but kept going though she couldn't see. She crashed into the side of a food booth and fell down, covered in the weird sparkles. Her body twitched for a few minutes. She kept on laughing crazily.

Ben shrugged. "Whatever. This episode should be fun for me. I love eating. I'm totally boss at it. I am a canonical bottomless pit. Also I really miss Upchuck, but I'll get over it."

Ben ran off in the opposite direction, leaving Grandpa Max behind.

Grandpa Max frowned deeply. "Hey, why do I get written out of the plot so quickly?"

"YOU'RE OLD!" Ben and Gwen both yelled from afar.

"I suppose it's true." Grandpa Max sighed while slumping his shoulders with the crushing weight of character obsolescence in a show geared toward extremely young audiences. "This series isn't establishing me as a badass grandpa anymore and I don't have a leg to stand on to gain audience interest. What a bummer." His bottom lip quivered. A sharp pain caused him to flinch. "Ow, my sciatica."

He hobbled off to go rest until he was relevant to the plot again.

Ben and Gwen ran to various food booths, sampling the exotic culinary items in highly unsanitary ways, like lapping them up off the plates and such. Learn some manners, why don't you. And for a supposedly crowded event with huge attendance, there were no other characters in the background. The strained animation budget wouldn't allow for it. That would also explain why they have to reuse the same handful of background characters and scenes from episode to episode.

"Budget cuts," the cousins cried before stuffing their faces once again.

Ben and Gwen sampled a collection of foreign foods that the young target demographic supposedly watching won't know about, but anyone who's ever seen Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmern will have seen at least once. Like balut. A balut is a developing bird embryo that is boiled and eaten from the shell. Bon appetite.

"No way! I'm not tainting my stomach with that insanity," Be said, staring fearfully into the chilled balut container. "Foreign delicacy, my hairless ass. That's gross!"

"I don't want to eat it," Gwen squealed in terror even as she reached into the water to pick up a slimy egg with boiled and then chilled bird fetus inside. "But the plot is FORCING ME!"

She held it over her open mouth while Ben looked on with a mix of horror and satisfaction. She swallowed it.

"Grosssssssssssss," Ben hissed before laughing.

Gwen raised her arms in the air, crying softly as she chewed, an air of depressingly shallow victory about her. She finished choking down the food. "I win," she gagged before collapsing to her knees. "I ate the weirdest thing imaginable. Yay me." Gwen grabbed her throat, dry heaving.

"Yep, guess you did," said Ben, giving her a slow clap. "Good for you."

Grandpa Max walked back into the plot.

"All right, I'm required by the plot again." He pulled out his script and put on his reading glasses. After browsing the script, his smile faded to a tight frown. "Oh, it's just to spit today's moral theme and then completely go against it a few minutes later, thereby making a giant hypocritical moron of myself at the end of the episode." He let out a heavy sigh, placing the script and the glasses into his vest pocket. "Well then."

Ben pointed to the Omnitrix. "Can you hurry it up? You're eating into my battle time with this useless filler no one cares about. The only thing anyone watches this show to see is me turning into aliens and punching bad guys in their dumb faces."

"Most of the current audience comes to see how bad the writing and characterization is," Gwen wheezed. She pounded her chest in an attempt to force down the burning lump in her esophagus, coughing a few times.

"It's called bile fascination," said Grandpa Max.

"You mean they come to see how badly you and Gwen's characterization will be derailed and how you'll get repeatedly shoved off screen so I can be the undisputed focus of the show, and the overall most competent character." Ben thrust his index finger at his Grandpa's face. "READ IT, OLD MAN!"

"Everyone's watching The Loud House at that time anyhow. Oh, I mean...Not everything is a contest," Grandpa Max said.

Some confetti fell. A sign dangled behind them, reading TODAY'S MORAL OF THE EPISODE. The banner tore apart and floated down to the ground gently. It laid there, sad and forgotten, to be trampled underfoot and eventually thrown in the trash.

Grandpa Max scratched his head. "Why do we even need these? It's not like this is aiming to be an edutainment kind of show. In fact, it's about the farthest thing from it. Kids, for your own safety, please turn away from the TV, laptop or phone right now before you lose any more brain cells! Ha ha. There's an educational PSA, eh, kids?" He turned to look at his grandchildren. "Kids?"

Ben and Gwen were too busy back to stuffing their faces with less disgusting food to pay attention to a boring adult.

"That figures," said Grandpa Max. "Oh well."

He got distracted and did the starry eyed sparkle thing too. Why do they do that? Why? Why do we need this in Ben 10? At least Steven Universe already has the star theme going. This one makes no sense. It doesn't even look right. Looks like somebody pasted a luminescent star over their eyes. Please, someone explain why all these unfitting things go on in this show. It does not feel like Ben 10 and I think they now realize this. This was an experiment to see if Ben 10 could be sliced up and watered down to fit into the new fast-paced social media addicted generation of kid's television. It cannot. Not without removing everything that made it entertaining. Which the ratings and toy sales will eventually prove. We've already got a second season by default but who knows if they'll sign on for a third. That one will be the real test on whether this show's still profitable. And then the plot finally moved to an interesting point.

Grandpa Max clapped his hands excitedly. "Ooh, finally. We're at the action stage!"

"Awww yeah," Ben said. "We're being introduced to today's villains. They're almost entertaining in a stupid sort of way."

"One of them looks and sounds like Kevin," said Gwen. "Only older and Japanese." She started crushing on him in the face of deep taboo. "You know someone out there's already shipping it," she whispered.

"And one of them sounds like Tara Strong using her Attea voice," said Ben. "Only she's not an alien frog. But sort of an amphibious species, I guess?"

"The other sounds like Wildvine's voice actor doing a less annoying and heavier fake Cajun accent," said Grandpa Max. "He's easier to listen to than Wildvine."

Yes, the Tri-Chefta. A trio of villainous weirdos with unexplained backgrounds and powers who prove to be slightly more entertaining than the main cast for the short time they appear. Let us watch them squabble for superiority while trying to make a fancy dish out of Wildvine. Did I say that Stinkfly was an annoying character in this show? Because I can't say that anymore. Reboot Wildvine usurps that title on a permanent basis. He's fucking terrible.

"Wowie zowie, it's the famous Tri-Chefta," said Grandpa Max as they approached the trio's trio of food trucks. "Say, guys, could you give us your brief info dump so the kids at home can get a better idea of your characters within the 10 minute time limit?"

"We are three legendary chefs with amazing skills that the writing team pulled out of their asses. It is we who are the most entertaining characters in this episode," said the Samurai Cooking chef. "My power is precision slicing with my awesome katana length chef's knife. I am the most interesting of all and thus the most popular character of the Tri-Chefta. I am relatable to both weeaboos and Kevin fanatics. They will embrace me, for many are one in the same." He tossed his long black hair over his shoulder and gave a seductive look to the fourth wall while posing with his glorious nippon steel. "I am a conventionally hot male with sexy bishonen hair. That is all you need to be popular. Japan sugoi desu ne. Breathy deep Greg Cipes voice."

The rabid Kevin fanatic's ovaries exploded.

"Get real! It is I who am the best, for I am the token sassy fat black genius female character with glasses and a bow tie required by the diversity quota of today's media so you'll ignore the fact that the major cast is still composed of mostly white males," said the Molecular Gastronomy chef. "My skill is unconventional methods of science based cooking that's more cartoonishly exaggerated than actual molecular gastronomy. The concept is far more entertaining. Also I'm cute. And sassy. And female. And black. And a science genius. I will be the most popular character on Tumblr. And if I'm not, I can be used in an ironic armchair activist argument against fandom misogyny and racism by the racist misogynists in the fandom." She adjusted her glasses, smirking with a confidence rarely allowed for female characters in the media.

Tumblr's ovaries exploded.

"Nah, see, I'm the best here," said the Kababbery chef in the greatest fake Cajun accent ever. "I ain't got nothin' fancy schmancy. I got me a stick and a grill. I am the simplest and most pure when it comes to cooking. That makes me the best. Also I'm the most heavy when it comes to the comedy relief. I'm a generic goofy white male redneck stereotype who the majority can easily relate to. Plus who don't love a good kebab? You're lyin' if you say you don't. Heeee-yooo! Hooo-eeey yeee-haw! Look at my heart tattoo. It's says Momma on it."

Some guy in Ohio's testicles exploded. He had a thing for greasy unwashed Southern men with Cajun accents. And heart tattoos.

"I love things roasted on a stick," said Grandpa Max. "So simple, yet so flavorful."

"Damn straight," said Kebabbery chef, nodding solemnly.

"Can you slice a cantaloupe so it looks like my head with those starburst eyes from Steven Universe," Ben asked the Samurai chef. "Or how's about something totally crazy impossible like skinning a raisin with your giant chef's knife on a sword hilt?"

"Yes, I can," said the Samurai chef. So he did.

"Hah. That's nothing. I can make ice cream out of fire," said the Molecular Gastronomy chef. She proceeded to do it. No, really. What.

"Big deal! I can roast things...on a STICK!" said the Kababbery chef while demonstrating said skill. "I'm the best at both roastin' and inserting sticks."

"Ooh, look! The Tri-Chefta is doing incredible things off screen that the viewers don't get to see because it would cost far too much to animate it so we just tell you what's happening," Gwen exclaimed. "You don't get to see it, but it's sooooo cool! Take our word for it! It's all you have!"

"I forgot to mention, we're also shapeshifters," said the Samurai chef. He transformed halfway into a spiky red beast.

His fellow chefs transformed halfway between their human forms and...whatever they are. Beasts, monsters, aliens? Not sure. Nothing is explained in this show. It's simply there and you don't quite understand what's going on but you accept it anyway. You have no choice.

So did they transform into their alternative versions right out there in front of everyone like Ben does with his aliens and no one cared or was startled in any way? Or wasn't anyone looking at that time? I don't get it. Maybe we're not meant to.

"Back to the main squabble at hand," said the Samurai red spiky beast chef. "I am the best and most popular of the Tri-Chefta. No one can match my cutting power." He threw his chef's knifetana at the Molecular chef, breaking some of her kitchen science beakers. "Now I have to go pick that back up. Excuse me." He climbed down from his truck to retrieve his blade.

"I'm the best," said the Molecular chef, between her human form and a chubby icy blue whatever she is. She has ice and chemical powers or something. "I have the power of SCIENCE! And also freezing stuff with my drool. Or is it vomit?" She sprayed an aerosol can of snow at the Kebabbery chef.

"I gots a stick," said the Kebabbery chef, transforming into something reminiscent of an Ed Roth art piece. He held up a flaming skewer. "And now it's on fire. Flaming stick always wins. I'll prove it. Lookie here!" He threw the flaming kebab skewer at his fellow chefs.

They ducked.

The skewer hit the stereotypically Italian olive oil vendor booth guy stationed next to them, exploding him into roaring flames. The devastation was horrible. His anguished screams will mar the Yum Yum Yum festival's memory for ages to come. Truly a tragedy.

Oh no. He's fine. He was somehow fireproof while his booth violently burned around him. Ben of course jumped in to save him from the all consuming flames. Eventually.

"Ben, Smokey the Bear reference," said Grandpa Max, addressing the irritable fourth wall.

"Grandpa," Ben asked, "why are you staring off in a random direction, pointing at nothing?"

"Oh, sorry. Just ignore that and turn into Water Hazard."

"...You mean Overflow?"

"Uh, yeah. What did I say?"

"Hang on, Gramps. I know something that'll be way more entertaining," Ben said as he transformed. Into Wildvine. Oy vey. "Oh yeah!" He struck a pose.

Gwen raised a brow at her cousin. "Any reason in particular you chose your most flammable alien out of all other practical choices?"

Wildvine shrugged. "Situational irony?"

No, it's because he needed to be Wildvine for the plot. That way the extremely carnivorous trio of hungry shapeshifting monster chefs could see how delicious he is. Deliciously infuriating.

"Gotta sell the toys," said Wildvine. "Mine will surely sell the least because of how painfully insufferable a character I am." He strutted around.

Meanwhile, the olive oil vendor was still burning to death. Only not really. Only his booth. TV-Y7 Kid's show.

"NO, IT'S NOT TRUE! SOME'A BODY'A HELP POOR MARIO! HE'S'A BURNING TO DEATH! THE OXYGEN, SHE'S A THINNING RAPIDLY! HELP! I DON'T WANNA DIE LIKE THIS, IN THIS'A REALLY BAD REBOOTED CARTOON SHOW THAT ONLY WAS CREATED TO SELL NEW TOYS! MOMMA MIA! PASTA FAZOOL!"

He started to pass out from smoke inhalation and two degree burns because this is a fanfiction parody free from the restrictive prison of the television ratings system or standards and practices. It's up to the author whether they want to stay within the limits of the show canon or not. And you already know what an asshole I am.

It's okay. He didn't die. But he could have. I am a benevolent God. Sometimes. He shit his pants from fear, by the way.

"PERCHÉ!" Mario cried in anguish before passing out fully in his own filth. It smelled worse due to the heat.

"Every sentence that comes out of my mouth makes you want to punch my smarmy green face a little more," said Wildvine, waving his arms around while trying to dance. He grabbed several giant leaf fulls of dirt and dumped it on the olive oil booth, smothering the fire. Hurrah. "At least I'm somewhat functional to the plot. Until they swap me out for the other better toys. I mean aliens. Characters. Lemme hear you say WOOP, WOOP! Hashtag WILDVIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!"

Funky music began to play. Everyone was treated to a sexy swagger of our scrumptiously obnoxious plant alien. The Tri-Chefta was missing for a scene. It went by fast so hopefully nobody notices these piling animation errors.

The Tri-Chefta drooled over Wildvine's exotic savoriness in possibly the one actually funny gag scene to come out of these episodic pratfalls. They all imagined him as their favorite manner of preparation while wearing creepily eager and very hungry looks.

"What a morsel," said Samurai chef with his tongue out, dripping with saliva. His fellow chefs did the same. "If this were taken out of context, we'd be mistaken for something other than culinary predators the way we're all drooling over a 10 year old boy who turns into a delectable plant based creature. All somebody needs to do is swap this scene with one from All Wet. Perhaps such a twisted comical scenario is already on Paheal."

"Don't give them any ideas," snapped the Molecular chef. "Back to the topic of the appetizing leaf humanoid who we don't care was a 10 year old human boy like twenty seconds ago. No one would miss him since he's the most irritating alien form on this show by far. Every time he speaks, my ears bleed."

"You don't even have ears outside of your human lady form," said the Kebab chef. "But I sure would like to impale that beautiful plant's sinewy body with somethin' hot and rigid, hmmmmm." He licked his lips slowly, seductively. His fellow chefs stared uncomfortably in his direction. He held up a skewer. "I mean a skewerin' stick! Y'all know what I meant. You just bein' stupid for the sake of a piss-poor joke."

"This is true," the Samurai chef admitted.

"It's less vulgar than what the original episodes' scripts did to the once intelligent cast of main characters you knew from your childhood," said the Molecular chef. "Just wait until Max to the Max airs. Woe to all who had expected that episode to improve his characterization rather than further mutilate it to impossibly Eldritch Abominable levels. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make an alliteration." She sneezed somewhat snidely.

"Alliterations are trite. I will slice him into the finest salad in all of creation," said Samurai chef, rubbing his delicate hands together. "With a hint of ginger dressing."

"No way. My incomprehensible science fusion techniques are the only way to properly prepare a perfect parsley. And alliteration's are awesome, you common troglodyte," said the Molecular chef. "Almost as delicious as the weird blown glass bubble looking thing I'm gonna turn Mr. Leafy into."

"Screw that, I want that sucker roasted on a stiiiiiiiick," the Kebab chef said huskily. "Accurate stick penetration brings out the real flavor in anything. I'll make that walking salad into the best vegetarian sausage in existence."

They all growled at each other over who'd be the one to prepare and cook today's intended dinner.

"Squabble, squabble, bicker, bicker," the Tri-Chefta argued in unison.

They're clearly a competent trio but always fight, yet they're always sticking together. Their trucks read Tri-Chef-Ta together. They form attacks together as a group. So they're stronger as a trio, but their in-fighting squabbles over who's best end up being their downfall seems to be the thing to take away here. Okay.

"It is the sad inevitability of the potentially competent villainous group in a children's show," said the Samurai chef. "The group will be undermined by petty squabbles. The evil characters must show their less desirable traits as a foil, or the heroes or singular hero in this case couldn't win against a villain team who in all honesty worked well together and otherwise did not have any stereotypical weaknesses to exploit."

"You gonna see a lot of it comin' up," said the Kebab chef, twirling one of his flaming skewers between his fingers. "We love fightin' almost as much as we love fuckin'." He quickly covered his mouth. "Whoops! Shouldn't have done said that one out loud."

"I'm the best by all rights," whispered the Molecular chef. "I have the most functional powers. I'm also the cutest. And cute always wins in popularity." She winked cutely.

"Cute? I can do cute," the Kebab chef declared. He pressed his fingers to his nonexistent dimples and fluttered his eyelids. "See how cute I am?"

"You're as cute as an infected open wound on a burnt scrotum," said the Molecular chef.

"It ain't all about aesthetics. I'm adorable in personality," said the Kebob chef.

"I am the sexiest character here and you both know it," said the Samurai chef. "I'm the closest thing this show has to Kevin E. Levin right now." He posed with a bright white perfect smile that gleamed and blinded everyone momentarily. "I'm also the only aesthetically pleasing one even in my beast form. In case the furries come around. I'm two for two."

"BICKER, BICKER," they all bickered more loudly.

Remember how the place was relatively deserted in the beginning? Well now that there's been an action scene that requires an audience for the plot to advance suddenly appears a cheering crowd to film Ben's heroic exploits on their camera phones and such. How terribly convenient.

"Yay, woo hoo," cheered the crowd of reused background characters while Wildvine showed off how big of an unlikable asshole character he is.

"Wow, Wildvine is sure annoying in this re-imagined continuity," said Gwen.

"Kids are attracted to douchebag characters who're full of themselves and driven by ego, Gwen. It's how they grow up learning who to vote for. Now, come on," he said, taking her tiny hand in his. "It's time to walk out of the plot again so Ben can take the focus. Hey, I got an idea! Let's you and me go ruin what little dignity we had going in this series by gorging ourselves in a competition to see who can binge the most without purging."

"Oh noooo," Gwen whined. "I knew this moment would come." She grabbed her stomach in preparation for the impending pain and humiliation, already feeling queasy. Or maybe it was the balut coming back up. "Uuugh, my life is composed of endless misery! Why?"

"Vagina, Gwen," Grandpa Max reminded her. Grandpa Max dragged her off by the boneless noodle arm as her groans of impending indignity increased.

Poor, poor Gwen and Grandpa Max. Hopefully they have something in store for you two in later seasons that will renew some of your former glory from the previous series. But at this point I doubt it.

"So do we," said Grandpa Max and Gwen together before disappearing into the childishly scribbled background scenery.

The Tri-Chefta gathered on Molecular chef's center truck, continuing to growl at each other over who was going to cook Wildvine. They're almost kind of cute together. Ew, what am I saying?

"Law of probability. Someone out there's gotta ship us," said Kebab.

"Polyamorous threesomes are all the rage these days," said Samurai.

Molecular shoved the two male goons out of her face. "Let's save that nonsense for a fic rated for a higher maturity and focus on the task at hand."

"Yes, the plant creature is getting on everyone's nerves. Let us encourage the audience to warm up to us further by removing him from the plot, murdering and then consuming him," said Samurai.

"Go, Tri-Chefta," they said, temporarily putting aside their differences and high-fiving each other.

Yes. Please, kill Wildvine. I swear I will never call reboot Stinkfly irritating ever again. Promise. I would rather have 20 reboot Stinkflies than 1 reboot Wildvine in any episode where I'm forced to listen to more than a single line of dialogue from him. Sorry, Ben.

"I'm a memetic catchphrase spewing jackass," Wildvine said. "But if you're a boy age 4-8, you'll love me. At least that's what the net execs are hoping for." He did a little dance and strutted his stuff, walking up a huge step-tower of shrubberies he created. "Oh boy, look how precariously balanced I am. Sure am vulnerable way up here, blindly rolling in narcissism. Sure would be bad if somebody cut down one of these down and sent me falling right off this cliff, waaaaaaaaay down there into the darker part of the forest were nobody could see me being violently dismembered. You know, if somebody wanted to do that. I'm gonna keep talking like I assume you want to listen to me or that the writers wanted my dialogue to keep going for an unbearably long time. Blah blah blah blah blah blah! YOLO! Twerking! Duck lips! Annoying catch phrases!"

The Tri-Chefta used their trio of attacks to cut down the shrubbery pole, dumping Wildvine off the cliff and thankfully ending the round of incessant ear torture spewing from his mouth.

Overflow doesn't seem so bad anymore. He's a disappointingly boring fusion-recolor but at least he's tolerable when onscreen, unlike this bastard.

Wildvine rolled down the hill and smashed into a tree, earning several laughs from his increasing group of haters who would love to have him switched out for Upchuck. Or anybody.

"WILDVINE IN DA HOUSE," he yelled. "I hope that was the concussion talking and not my actual line of dialogue." He rubbed his ugly plant head.

Something in the shadows made a noise and jumped past the camera too fast for you to see though you already knew what it was. Dramatic tension was not increased. A pair of familiar icy blue eyes popped out in a bush. There came the sound of eerie whispers. Both vanished abruptly.

Wildvine looked around. "Oh, I get it. This is supposed to be scary for the little kids ages 4-8," he said.

"No, it's supposed to be scary for you," said the disembodied voice of Blue, the Molecular chef, as her two fellow chefs, now in their fully transformed versions, crept up ominously behind Wildvine. They were taller and eviler looking but still too cartoony to intimidate the young children. "This is a fanfic and we don't have to conform to kid-friendly TV standards anymore. That means we get to dismember you horrifically and consume your cooked corpse. And the best part is everyone who hates you as a character wants to see us do it."

Wildvine looked behind him. "Oh, all right, I get it now. That's why I sometimes can swear without getting censor bleeped. Ha, I thought that was weird." He stood there in an awkward pause for several seconds before running away in a full blown panic. "OH SHIT! THEY WANNA EAT ME!"

The Tri-Chefta gave chase.

"You can't escape us," said the former Samurai, Red, the spiky beast who could transform his hands into knife-sharp points for precision slicing. Get it? Their alternative forms are based on their chef skills. Or vice versa. Since these are assumed to be their original forms. "Our hunting skills are legendary. And you're an idiot. This will not be a hard task to finish."

"Stop all that runnin'. You're gonna make yourself tough," said Green, the flaming-eyed whiskered spotted green whatever the hell who was formerly the Cajun Kebab guy. The captions say his name is Stick. That's so stupid it's probably canon.

The rolie polie icey Blue popped up and vomited out some liquid ice as Wildvine passed, freezing him in his tracks.

"Somebody stab him while the stabbing's good," she yelled.

"Nooooo! I can't die like this! I'm too beautiful of a cinnamon roll, too pure," Wildvine wailed. "I haven't read all the Know Your Meme articles to see what's trending with the kids so I can try desperately to be relatable!" He broke his own foot off, screaming. "Oh wait. That didn't hurt." His foot grew back about a second later. "Oh, nice. I did not know this about Wildvine's alien powers. Good thing. I can try to regrow my head in case it gets bitten off. Just like the previous world's most insufferable Florauna before me, Pax. COOL SAUCE!"

"Oh, God, shut up and stop trying to be relatable to today's kids age 4-8," said Blue. "You're unbearably irritating like they are."

"Indeed," said Red. "We would find a way to officially kill you here, but that would end the story prematurely. And turn this from a parody into a unintentional graphic darkfic which would then have to be rated appropriately."

"And I was all set to skewer him but good," said Green with much disappointment. "I even got me this big ol' pointy stick." He waved it around. "So am I pullin' these out of my body, or what? Also I breathe fire." He demonstrated said skill. "I dunno how. But I do it."

"We don't know how we do anything," said Blue. "And neither will the audience. It's never going to be explained." Blue used her powers of whatever it is to produce some kind of gas bubbles to knock Wildvine out. "See? I have the most functional powers of the group. I've incapacitated this weed based dickwad three times in total in this episode. Let's see you jerks do something like that."

The other two frowned.

"I breathe fire," Green said. "And I got sticks! What's not to love?"

"I can make my hands into knives, fuck you both passionately for hours," said Red, slightly jealous of how he didn't have any secondary powers like the other two. "My aesthetic hotness is my secondary power."

Wildvine woke up in a net some unspecified time later. "Oh," he grunted. "What happened? Is the episode over yet? I didn't like where the plot was going. In fact, I want to make an official complaint to the network. This show is terrible! What kind of imitable things are you teaching today's extremely impressionable children?" That 99% of current media isn't worth watching anymore. Go outside. Take up a hobby. Learn a new language. Save yourselves.

"Quiet, Leaf Man," said Red. "Now, as I was saying. I'm going to make him into the best ginger salad in existence."

"Oh no you're not," said Blue. "I'm going to cook him. I was the one who trapped him and knocked him out. All you did was stand there and piss everyone off by not being Kevin Levin but using his voice and having long sexy black hair in your human form."

"I have a flaming stick," said Green, shoving in between them. "'Nuff said."

Ben conveniently timed out and turned back into a disconcertingly off model human noodle child. For whatever reason convenient to the plot, human was not one of the delicacies known to the Tri-Chefta as it is to other aliens across the universe. If they are aliens. Lucky for Ben. Or maybe they've had human before. There's a fanfic idea for someone to explore.

Green looked around. "Hey now! Where'd the Lettuce Man go?"

His fellow chefs looked around stupidly as if they didn't see Ben change back with a loud noise and a huge flash of light a moment ago.

"We didn't," assured Red. "For the sake of the plot."

"We have no idea where he went," said Blue, folding her stubby little arms. She rolled her huge round eyes. "No idea whatsoever."

"Well now, I seriously wasn't paying attention," Green said, scratching his butt with the end of a stick. Unsanitary. "I genuinely didn't see nothin'."

"I saw him! He went that-a-way," Ben said, pointing in an opposite direction. "This is not a lie to save myself and you should totally believe it. For the sake of the plot."

"Okay then. We shall now go in this direction thanks to the tiny flesh man's hot tip that surely isn't a lie to save his own ass," said Red.

"It's not," Ben said, smiling innocently. Cartoon sweat drops slid down his temples. "That's not nervous sweat. It's hot out."

The Tri-Chefta started slowly and unenthusiastically running in the opposite direction to where Ben was.

Once they weren't looking, Ben transformed into Stinkfly. Oh, thank you. I was starting to miss him. I never thought I'd say that, yet here we are.

"Good thing no one saw me transform," said Stinkfly.

"We totally saw you transform," said Red. "You tricked us. And by that I mean the contrived plot tricked us. By allowing you to trick us. We're normally smarter than this."

"Yeah, that happens. Lowering enemy intelligence so I can easily kick your butts. We've only got 10 minutes, you know." Stinkfly shrugged. "And now it's time for the part where I stink. Was that a pun or a truth? I'll let the audience decide. Heheheheahahaha!" He put a hand to the corner of his mouth, turning to the fourth wall. "I'm better than Wildvine, kids. Buy my toy. It comes out in the second wave, sadly. They wanted to push all the old favorite more popular classics first because they knew they'd sell better than the rest of the new crap. And Doctor Animo."

FUCKERS PUT HIM IN THE SECOND WAVE FOR OCTOBER OR NOVEMBER OR WHATEVER. FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, PLAYMATES. Eh, I don't care. Well, I do, but there's nothing I can do but wait patiently until he gets released in the second wave during the fall. It's funny how they put Overflow in that wave too, along with Stink, Vine, and Upgrade. AKA the expendable wave as some have been calling it. Ha ha, oh no, I made myself sad. That's to say nothing of the 2018 Christmas wave that has poor Vilgax. Back to the story.

"And now Greg Cipes gets to talk to himself," said Red.

"Sure does," Stinkfly said before he unleashed his collarbone fart blasts at the creepy monster chefs.

The gas cloud enveloped them briefly before it faded away. It had no effect. Oopsie.

No, wait. It did have an effect.

Blue inhaled the pungent air. "Mmmm. He's like a finely aged foot-rot and dumpster smelling French cheese," she said hungrily, drool spilling from her mouth. She rubbed her tiny weird hands together. "The worse it smells, the better it tastes."

"No way! That's gross! You all have terrible taste," Stinkfly shouted. He flew into the air to dodge another one of Blue's foot freezing techniques. "Leave my foot alone! I don't think I can regrow missing limbs with this one. Some earth insects can live for an hour without their heads, but I don't want to find out if that's part of Stinkfly's species' skills."

"He was also the plant creature," said Red. "He's a shapeshifter like us. Only dumber, uglier, and far less likable."

"Hey!" Stinkfly glared. He placed his hands to his chest. "I'm the top selling point of this series. Can't you see how hard they're pushing my character? I get more screen time than Overflow and all the other aliens put together. Greg Cipes, yo! TURFLYTLEEEEEEEEEE! BUZZ, BUZZ!"

He gasped as a flaming skewer sailed through the air, nearly missing his big stupid alien head. It thunked into the tree trunk behind him.

"No one cares, boy! You come down here and let me skewer you real good now," said Green.

"No way. I am filled with youthful rebellion! And be careful where you throw those things, will you? We're in a forest made entirely of badly painted cardboard." He knocked on a tree at his left side. It fell over, landing with a sad feather-light poot of cardboard hitting ground. "Hopefully all the budget for this show went into the parts where Vilgax shows up."

"It went to the writing team's weed fund and you know it," said Blue.

"Omni-Tricked will make or break this series," Red said. "And the title is already questionable. If it is in fact real this time." Who knows, who cares anymore. This show better not dare go into a 6th month hiatus or everyone will forget it exists.

Red jumped at Stinkfly and missed. Green grabbed him and tried to shove a skewer through his head. Blue barfed up a stream of freezing gastric juice, trapping Stinkfly inside a giant ice block.

"Winner," Blue gloated. She does seem to have the best skills of the group when capturing prey.

"Bah! If it wasn't for us slowin' him down, you'da never caught him," said Green.

"Perhaps there was a bit of favoritism from the writing group," said Red.

"Or maybe I'm just that good. What of it?" said Blue.

"Maybe you're getting special treatment for being female," said Red.

"Maybe you're a jealous sexist dickstain who can't stand to see strong skilled female characters taking up your precious screen time with their existence," Blue yelled.

"Maybe you're projecting because you can't stand justified criticism," Red yelled back.

"Maybe you should shut the fuck up!"

"You first!"

"I JUST WANNA YELL TOO," yelled Green. "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT ABOUT! I GOT A STIIIIIIIIIIIICK AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT!"

"SHUT UP ABOUT THE STICKS ALREADY," yelled the other two.

A brief comedic brawl ensued between the trio.

"Again, I do not like where this story is going," Stinkfly said from within his frigid prison. "I don't like any story that involves me almost dying. And I wish I was more a combination of Big Chill instead of only having a reminiscent color scheme and body. I-'m-m-m s-s-so c-c-c-old r-r-right n-n-n-ow!" His lips were turning blue but you couldn't really tell.

"Blah, blah, distracting in-fighting," said the Tri-Chefta, entangled with each other as they tiresomely argued about which one truly was the best and therefore got to cook Stinkfly.

"You talk too much when you could be doin' somethin' else with that mouth of yours!" said Green.

Green poked Red on the lips. They have now become the default ship pairing through brief physical contact and being male.

"What?" they both said, startled.

Sorry, I don't make the rules. When two men touch each other, they're automatically shipped. Specifically when your board-driven show is full of yaoi shippers. Hex confirmed gay bachelor when. How 'bout bisexual Doctor Animo.

"What am I? Chopped liver?" said Blue.

"No, you're a rotund female. Which is both your empowering diversity trait and at the same time your major downfall in the fandom," said Red.

Blue grumbled, clenching her little fists. "What a Catch-22!"

"Ha ha. No one will ever ship you," said Red, chuckling.

"HAW, we both better at you than somethin'," said Green. "Gettin' LAID!"

Blue went back into battle mode and jumped her fellow male chefs, slamming them to the ground.

Another heated argument slash cartoon fight ball between the trio ensued.

"Good thing for me they're conveniently distracted by constantly fighting each other," said Stinkfly. He broke out of the ice block using his nasty gas. "They remind me of those argumentative chefs from the Tri-Chefta."

He paused for a moment, tilting his head to one side in a mix of confusion and dawning realization. He held up his fingers, counting on three.

"Hey, wait. There's three of them...three of the Tri-Chefta. Hmmmmmmmmmm. Nope. Lost it. Oh, wait. I almost got it. Hang on." He grunted, clutching his head, trembling with effort. "No, wait! I'll get it. Don't anyone help me! I gotta do this by myself."

The Tri-Chefta ceased their battle and stared with vague amounts of pity at Stinkfly as he struggled to use his brain.

"Wow, that's sad," said Red.

"Tell me about it," said Blue.

"Uh huh," said Green.

"UUUUUUUGH! WAIT. WAIT!" After an amazing five minutes of intellectual struggle, Stinkfly finally got it. "Oh! Now I got it! You guys sound and act a lot like those chefs from the Tri-Chefta because you ARE those chefs from the Tri-Chefta! Ha. You know, now that I think about it, it's so obvious."

"Then why did it take you that long to see it, dummy?" Blue inquired.

"It's obvious because it was spoiled by the trailers for the UK based episodes," said Red.

"It's not my fault! Me brain correctly not work in this universe," Stinkfly groaned. He grabbed his throbbing head. "I'm lucky I can manage to string semi-coherant sentences together sometimes. My thought process is full of intrusive fart jokes! I'd say I'm doing pretty good for what I have to work with."

Blue sniffed the air. "The gas he uses contains methane. And so the kids back home know, methane is flammable. Meaning it's easily combustible. That means it explodes. BOOM!"

"Yeah, most of them probably already learned that years ago from Swampfire." Stinkfly sighed with a reminiscing smile. "Remember when my alien fusion-recolors weren't exactly amazing, but they weren't as boring and lame as they are now? I miss those days."

"I miss the days when random plot contrivances that appear out of nowhere wouldn't sit too well with audiences," said Green as he noticed a bunch of his lit flaming skewers had suddenly out of nowhere become embedded in his back during the scene transition. "Then wacky shit like this wouldn't happen." He scrambled to get them out.

"Aw yeah! Again, convenient! Boom goes the dynamite," Stinkfly yelled, seeing an opportunity.

He grabbed two of the flaming sticks away from Green. He then blew some of his death farts in the Tri-Chefta's direction using the flames to create an explosion that blasted them into the river. Funny how that didn't happen when Green was holding one of his big flaming sticks during the first blast of gas before it being full of methane and thus explosive became relevant to the plot. Oh well. Let's overlook that.

"Yes, let's overlook it because it's damn embarrassing," Green wailed.

"Byyyyyyyyyyye. Nice knowin' ya. Don't y'all come back now, y'hear!"said Stinkfly.

"Nooooo," the Tri-Chefta screamed, knowing their screen time was over. Possibly forever. A little sad to think. They were okay. Weird, yet passably entertaining. "We'll always have fanfiction," they cried as they were swiftly carried down the river.

"You wish," said Stinkfly.

They also won't be featured in the toyline. Barely anyone out of the new villains is. Because the toyline is ridiculously small this time around. At least best newbie Smythe made it into the first wave. Unlike someone else I'm not salty about.

I'm lying, my sodium levels are THROUGH THE ROOF. Urgh, they probably won't even make his most toyetic looking new mutants into collectible figures, damn it. So much missed potential from this reboot.

"Haaaa, they look so sad and hilarious as they're swept down the river and hopefully over a tall waterfall." Stinkfly waved them off. "Bon voyage. That's French for LATER LOSERS!"

Ten seconds later, Ben was back at the Yum Yum Yum festival, recanting his bad food pun to a disabled and helpless Gwen and Grandpa Max.

"Oh, God. Why? Why did the plot compulsively make us eat all that fermented squid liver?" Gwen wailed, clutching her distended belly. "Someone's going to make inflation weight gain art of us. It's canon now."

"I'm not bara anymore," Grandpa Max groaned, struggling with his huge belly. "Or am I more bara? I forget." He belched. The air reeked most foully. "Oh, it doesn't matter anyway. My face is too off model for anyone to think I'm hot anymore." He covered it with one hand. "Don't look at me! I'm hideous!"

Ben ignored their severe gastrointestinal distress. "Guys, are you even listening to me? You know how I hate being ignored." His pug nose twitched in anger.

"Pain," Gwen gurgled. "Dignity...lost...forever."

"IQ...level...dropped...significantly," grunted Grandpa Max. "Never recover! Ben...go on without us. We're done for. This episode...has destroyed what little benevolent characterization we had going."

"No way! I can't go on without someone to chauffeur me around and someone else to act as my pet damsel in distress and occasional comedy relief semi-subservient sidekick," Ben said. "I'll go get somebody with a stomach pump." He walked a few steps. "Boy, it's a good thing none of the really competent villains were part of this episode. They could have totally messed us up, what with you two idiots being so mangled by the plot, you ended up rendering yourselves extremely vulnerable to an attack. Usually I'm the one to do that. And then I always got a stupid preachy life lesson afterward I had to actually learn something from, unlike now."

"You did do it, Mr. Ego," Gwen moaned angrily. "When you were gloating as Wildvine and let the Tri-Chefta knock you down the cliff into the forest so they could hunt you for dinner. If your self-absorbed stupidity hadn't lead you plunging off in another plot direction, you'd have been suffering with us right now!"

"No way. I have more functioning brain cells in this series than the two of you put together. And hey, you weren't supposed to know about my extended egotistical stupidity." Ben eyed her suspiciously. "You two were written out of the plot at that time so you never got to see what I did when I was off by myself until I told you the last bit right now for the sake of a bad ending joke. Gwen, were you jealously peeking in on my main character focus?" He gasped with scandalization. "For shame!"

"Oh, whatever. Just bring back a medic! I think I'm going to explode," yelled Gwen, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

"Not yet," Ben said. He wagged his finger. "Speaking of gloating. I don't even need to go Wildvine to do this." He swung his hips in a circle as he chanted loudly, "NOT EVERYTHING'S A CONTEST, GUYS. NOT EVERYTHING'S A CONTEST, GUYS. NOT EVERYTHING'S A CONTEST, GUYS. Ironic echo!"

He did a fist pump of sweet, sweet victory.

"I'm the smart one on this show, ha ha, I'm the best. I am immune to all the characterization crippling comical stupidity for the most part. Because I need to somewhat function in order to fulfill the heroic plot. Because I'm Ben Tennyson, the main character, center star of the show, relatable to boys ages 4-8, top selling point of this years running franchise, and I'm the BEEEEEEEEEEEEST!"

"Grandpa," Gwen said softly through the pain, raising a trembling hand. "Can we please go mini-golfing tomorrow? Nothing horrific could possibly happen to us during a mini-golf game. Right?"

"Yes," Grandpa Max agreed. He was losing consciousness from the insanely high blood sugar spike induced by eating so much fatty garbage. "Nothing terrible could happen to us during an innocent and normal game of mini-golf. We'll do that tomorrow. If we live."

"Oh, you'll live," Ben said, rubbing his hands together. "You'll live so I can defeat you all humiliatingly easy in a game of mini-golf. Because I'm the main character. The best. And I-"

Grandpa Max and Gwen groaned more loudly together.

"Please, end the story already," Gwen said, frothing at the corner of her mouth. She passed out into blissful oblivion, gurgling slightly.

"Good idea, Gwen." Grandpa Max joined her.

"I'm just thankful it wasn't me being humiliated for the sake of bad comedy for once," said Ben with a deep sigh of relief.

Until next time. Good day.


End file.
